Plant Centromere Compositions

United States Patent Application

The present invention provides for the nucleic acid sequences of plant centromeres. This will permit construction of stably inherited recombinant DNA constructs and minichromosomes which can serve as vectors for the construction of transgenic plant and animal cells.

[0002] The government owns rights in the present invention pursuant to U.S. Department of Agriculture Grant No. 96-35304-3491 and Grant No. DE-FC05-920R22072 from the Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research, National Science Foundation Grant No. 9872641, and Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research Grants DE-FG02-01ER83163, DE-FG02-01ER83165, and DE-FG02-01ER83166.